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®Ii? Suajjiratiun of tijr iCiigal Crginu 



Commander and Companions of the Loyal Legioyi : 

What I have to say this evening is not so much history as 
personal confession. I shall try to tell you what the inspiration 
of the Loyal Legion is to me, in the hope that I may emphasize 
its permanent power for good and the responsibilities that rest 
upon us if we would have it a living influence and not a dead 
thing, an outworn casket that once ensouled virile men. 

And first of all let us consider whence and how did the 
Loyal Legion come to be. Personally, I always think of it as the 
first flower that sprang from the grave of Abraham Lincoln, for 
his death and its birth bear the date April 15, 1865. It was con- 
ceived in that dark hour ot grave doubt when no one knew how 
widespread was the conspiracy which had murdered our great 
leader and stricken down high officers of his government. It 
sprang into life from the high purpose and firm resolve of some 
of the bravest hearts of the North to make eternal the principles 
for which Abraham Lincoln, their patron Saint, had lived, sufl^ered 
and died. 

The tears of the Founders of the Loyal Legion shed at the 
grave of the martyred President moistened the cradle of this new- 
born infant. You realize, therefore, that this was not a joyous 
birth, nor one of elation, but rather one of anguish and sorrow, 
and of dread uncertainties and responsibilities. 

The Loyal Legion, to my mind, to-day is the concrete, 
crystallized expression of earnest men who hated human slavery 
who fought for human rights, who believed in the United States 
of America as a Union and were determined to perpetuate the 
high ideals of those States; of men, who, in the exigencies 
brought into being by Lincoln's death, pledged anew to the great 



cause which they, themselves, had helped to win, their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honors. 

It necessarily follows that our Loyal Legion is no place for 
triflers and pleasure-seekers, nor is it a club for non-thinking and 
unpatriotic men, but rather a temple of another kind of men; for 
men of high purpose and firm resolve, as its founders were. 

We, the gray-haired who are living on borrowed time, who 
have shed our tears at Lincoln's grave and at the cradle of the 
Loyal Legion; we, who lived through that fateful 15th day of 
April, 1865, and who swore by the God of our Country that the 
principles that we had fought for and for which he had died should 
not perish from the Earth, have no need to say whence come to 
us the inspiration of the Loyal Legion. 

But you younger members of the Order may well ask, what 
has this to do with us ? We are not our fathers ; we did not share 
their perils; we were not of those fateful times! Save as history, 
whence comes our inspiration? 

My answer is two-fold. First — it is an axiom of life that 
man only gets by giving: we, the gray-haired, therefore, give to you 
of our inspiration: you are by our sides and we share with you our 
stories of moving accidents by flood and field : we tell you what 
the spirit of the Loyal Legion is and ever has been to us and 
impress upon your hearts what we ourselves believe: we point to 
the Roster of our Order and show you the names of our exalted 
Companions, now your Companions. We ask you, confidently, is 
it not something, even now, for you to say, in very truth, I am 
the Companion of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Farragut 
and Porter, and of the thousands of others who stood by President 
Lincoln in his dire extremity ? To say it, too, in the presence of 
those who themselves helped make those patriotic names to endure 
through the ages ? 

And, second — you in your turn give to us of your youth, of 
vour enthusiasm growing out of this union of old and young, this 
joining of our yesterdays and your to-days — for we need you as 
you need us, and, when we pass on, as soon we must, to join the 



great majority, "those other living, named the dead," you will have 
memories never to be effaced to pass on as inspiration to your 
children and your children's children. 

The Commandery of the State of Massachusetts was instituted 
March 4, 1868 — the fourth of the Great State Commanderies — 
preceded only by Pennsylvania, New York and Maine. My own 
election to this Commandery was on the 7th day of July, 1868 — 
my insignia bear the number 853. To-day the number of insignia 
issued is upwards of 17,000. 

I may be pardoned for making personal allusions in this 
presence, if only to show that whatever of inspiration the Loyal 
Legion has been to me has lasted through seven and forty years, 
and in the hope that this mere record of years may stimulate your 
faith and be accepted by you as proof of the enduring quality of 
that inspiration which burns to-day in my heart more glowingly 
than ever before, for never more than to-day has our Country needed 
the service and the inspiration of our great Order. 

In you younger members, 1 repeat, must center ere long the 
future of the Loyal Legion. It is your right to receive as it is 
our privilege to commit to you this sacred flower of our early man- 
hood as your inheritance. As your fathers' sons, we love you ; 
and as vour fathers' sons, we trust you ; and while we are permitted 
we shall stand bv your side, to advise and encourage; to sustain 
and inspire you. 

Does any one of you ask how long will this organization en- 
dure? I answer — ^just so long as the members ot it are true to the 
principles of the founders and no longer. When we and you and 
your successors cease to be true to those principles, this Loyal 
Legion, which carries an inspiration in its verv name, should cease to 
be. 

And this leads us directly to the vital question — what were 
those principles of the founders? What was and is their signifi- 
cance ? 

They were two in number and only two embodied in the 
Constitution of the Order, Belief in God, Fidelity to Country. 



These two principles are the simplest and the most far-reach- 
ing principles that man has to-day, or has had, or will have so 
long as man endures. The essence of the one is of divine concep- 
tion. Belief in God is the foundation of human progress and of 
individual growth and character, and a true understanding of its 
limitless scope rests on contemplation. Fidelity to Country deals 
with the complexities of life in an organized community; it shifts 
its point of view to meet the ever-changing conditions of organized 
political life, but never changes its character. 

These two principles, Belief in God, Fidelity to Country, are 
basic, Thev are not shibboleths, nor war cries ; they are not mere 
declarations; they are the essence of the Infinite; they are to be 
lived. They are of man's bone and sinew; the breath of his nos- 
trils; the very mainsprings of his daily, hourly thought and act. 
They are the soul — the ultimate you. 

You remember when Oliver Cromwell was asked how he ex- 
pected to make his hinds the equals in battle of those who had loy- 
alty to the King in their hearts, he flashed back the answer, "By 
putting into the hearts of these hinds a greater thing than loyalty to 
a King and that is lovalty to the Great God Almighty, the King 
of Kings !" Hence came the Ironsides. 

Do we not recognize in our daily lives the difference between 
the man who believes in God and the man who only says he does ? 
Between the man who simply talks true allegiance and fidelity to 
his Country and the man who is faithful to it? 

The thought of the real man is of service to God and his 
Country. He does not substitute for patriotism the contemptible 
and degrading question, — where do I come in? To him — devo- 
tion to God, to Country, are manifestations on earth of the Father- 
hood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, His brotherhood be- 
gins at home. It must begin there, but it does not end there. 
His loyalty to God and Country is one whole and entire thing and 
knows no division; he knows no half-hearted allegiance. He does 
not worship God and the Devil. He does not hate and injure .his 
neighbor to prove his universal brotherhood. 



This is the ultimate, the enduring inspiration of the Loyal Le- 
gion as I interpret it. On these two principles, belief in God and 
unswerving allegiance and devotion to the United States of Amer- 
ica, this Order is built, and every other purpose is subordinate 
to them. 

The great Library ; the great Museum of Memorabilia of the 
Civil War you have gathered together attest the spirit of inspired 
service which has animated many, but one man (Colonel Arnold 
A. Rand ) above all others, to perpetuate the inspiration and name 
of the Commandery of Massachusetts and its pre-eminent place in 
the Order. 

It is for you and for me and for our successors to say shall this 
organization endure? Shall our fidelity to God and to Country 
proclaim that we are in very truth a Loyal Legion? Shall we not 
pledge ourselves anew here and now that whenever our Country 
calls upon her sons, for unselfish service, for absolute fidelity, for 
unquestioning devotion, she will not call in vain on those who 
carry in their hearts the inspiration of the Loyal Legion ? 



THE ROCKWELL & CHURCHILL PRESS 
BOSTON 



H 29 89 









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